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Hollywood's Most Overpaid Actors 2016

At the very least, said milestones will provide ample headline fodder for what otherwise would be a slow weekend for office posts. Nonetheless, has made official what I merely presumed this morning, which is that Star Wars: The Force Awakens will top $900 million at the domestic box office as of today, with $899.1m as of yesterday. That will make a nice "$900m in 50 days" milestone, although I think they would have been okay if it took until Saturday to hit the mark. But on that note, the film will pass $2 billion worldwide tomorrow, on its 53rd day of worldwide release. What else is there left to say at this point?

Okay, here's something: The film will also cross the $1.1 billion overseas mark over the weekend as well. That puts it around $63m, give or take where it ends up by weekend's end, behind the $1.163b overseas total of Furious 7 from about a year ago. In a shining example of the periodic disparity between overseas and domestic box office, the Fast/Furious sequel ranks as the sixth-biggest global grosser of all time and the third-biggest overseas grosser of all time but merely the 31st-biggest domestic grosser of all time with a sad/shameful $351m domestic (in 2D no less).

If you look at the top grossing films of all time worldwide, especially over the last few years, you'll see a relative pattern of films that earned 60-75% of their money overseas. Star Wars: The Force Awakens sticks out as having earned "just" 54% of its money overseas. You'll have to go all the way down to 21st place for a global grosser with a bigger domestic chunk, which is (plot twist!) Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace. What's next on the list? The Dark Knight, which remains the only $1 billion grosser to earn more than 50% (53%) of its money in America.

Now The Dark Knight Rises (which had no subplots involving Chinese gangsters which thus allowed it to play in China, thank you much) earned a "better" 53% of its money overseas, but Batman has always been a bigger domestic attraction than overseas one (in 1989, Batman came in second worldwide to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) which should give Warner Bros./ Inc. a slight pause in regards to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (which just announced that it will open in China and America on the same day).

For an "Egads!" comparison, Spectre made just 22% of its $877 million worldwide in America, although to be fair 007 was always an overseas monster even before that became the status quo for would-be blockbusters. So what does this all mean? Well, nothing, really. Star Wars: The Force Awakens over-performed in America due to a smart release date, a crowd-pleasing final product that played against conventional wisdom in terms of casting, and explicitly American interest in the Star Wars mythology that didn't necessarily translate to every country on Earth. And that's okay.

Sure, you can argue that Walt Disney has a little work to do for future Star Wars chapters so that they will do a little better in certain overseas territories (like China, which will finish out at around $125m) to potentially compensate for any domestic drops over the next few "official" episodes. But unless you're going to sit here and argue that a Star Wars Episode VIII is a disappointment/flop if it "only" makes $550m domestic and "only" makes $1.375 billion next time out (40/60 split), then this is mere trivia going forward.

I will do a "worst case scenario" Episode VIII sequel drop breakdown sometime in the near future purely for fun, but we're not talking Hot Tub Time Machine 2 or Wayne's World 2 here. Even a drop comparable to Kick-Ass 2 gets it to $540 million and we should remember most moviegoers rather enjoyed The Force Awakens. Anyway, the film has crossed $900m domestic, will cross $2b worldwide, and probably won't top the overseas gross of Furious 7 and the worldwide gross of Titanic. No, I'm not making a "Can this franchise be saved?" joke today, but maybe tomorrow. But if you loved that running gag, then you'll love "Superhero fatigue strikes again!" in a week when Deadpool does what Deadpool is gonna do.